Germany and Brazil topped the podium in the boys' and girls' competition of the 2013 FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championships

Porto, Portugal, January 14,
2014 – Portugal’s city of Porto will once again host the FIVB Beach Volleyball
U19 World Championships this year. The Championships, scheduled to run from
July 30 to August 3, will be jointly organised by the Fédèration Internationale
de Volleyball (FIVB), the Portuguese Volleyball Federation (FPV) and Porto City
Hall.

The matches will be held at
the Transparente Building beach for
the second consecutive year, and for the third time since 2010.

In
2013, Moritz Reichert and Clemens Wickler from Germany took the top spot in the
boys' FIVB Beach Volleyball U19 World Championship while Brazil’s Eduarda
Santos Lisboa and Taina Silva Bigi claimed the gold medal in the girls’
competition.

Moritz
Reichert and Clemens Wickler claimed the third gold medal for Germany in the
12-year history of the boys' Championship, when the 18-year olds beat Norway’s
Bjarne Nikolai Huus and Christian Sandlie Sorum 2-0 (21-16 21-17) in the final.

Brazil’s Eduarda Santos Lisboa and Taina Silva Bigi took
gold in the girls’ competition with a clean 2-0 (21-12 21-16) win over Russia’s
Anna Gorbunova and Nadezda Makroguzova. It was the first medal for Brazil since
2005, when Carolina Aragao and Barbara Seixas claimed the gold. The 14-year old
Eduarda had also won silver with Thais Rodrigues Ferreira a few weeks earlier
at the U23 in her debut year.

Although Tomás Silva and Diogo
Maia were eliminated early on in the tournament, they were the only team to take a set away from the gold medallists
Reichert/Wickler 2-1 (21-15, 20-22, 15-10) in their almost perfect run. Their
fellow Portuguese Jorge Graça/Artur Rezende placed seventeenth overall in the
competition.

The girl’ home teams of Vanessa
Paquete/Gabriela Coelho, Inês Pereira/Maria Tinoco ended in 17th
place with the feeling that things could have worked out better for them.

Last year’s tournaments also
featured a number of Portuguese referees including Sandra Deveza, Rui Carvalho and Cesário Rama.

Portugal
has a long history of hosting FIVB international beach volleyball events with
13 men’s tournaments and nine women’s having been held in Espinho, two for each
gender on the island of Porto Santo in addition to the FIVB U19 World
Championships in Porto in 2010 and 2013.

Porto is Portugal's second largest city and the
capital of the Norte region. It is located in the estuary of the Douro River in
the northern part of the European country and has a population of over 1.7million
in the greater metropolitan area.